Warren man charged with assaulting 4 people early Sunday in Hubbard

GIRARD — A Warren man will be arraigned today in Girard Municipal Court, charged with two felony offenses and two misdemeanors after he purportedly punched three men and a woman early Sunday on North Main Street in Hubbard, causing one of the victims to suffer a skull fracture.

Joshua L. Wauer, 29, of Bonnie Brae Avenue Northeast, is charged with felonious assault, felony theft and two counts of misdemeanor assault and was taken to the Trumbull County jail after the 2:24 a.m. confrontation.

Hubbard police said Wauer’s girlfriend said the dispute began when two men in a vehicle made a sexual comment about her. The two men denied making the remark.

Police said Wauer then went to the car and punched the driver, 25 of Masury, six to seven times in the side of the head through the open car window, then went to the other side of the car and hit the other male, 24, of Hubbard, at least several times in the head.

Then, Wauer “engaged” another man, James V. McIntyre, 33 of Hubbard, in the street, when McIntyre came to “break up” the fight, police said.

Wauer struck McIntyre “hard directly in the face, causing McIntyre to fall to the street, striking his head hard. McIntyre was unconscious in the middle of the street with about seven people around him when police arrived.

Witnesses said Wauer and his girlfriend went from there to a parking lot nearby, where a woman, 26, of Hubbard, took out her cell phone and told Wauer and his girlfriend she was getting their license plate number.

But Wauer’s girlfriend stood in front of the license plate, police said. Wauer then grabbed the cell phone from the woman’s hand and punched her hard in the face, causing her to fall to the parking lot, also unconscious.

The woman said when she awoke, everyone was gone.

McIntyre was in St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital Sunday night with a skull fracture and blood clot, police said.

The woman who was injured declined to be taken in an ambulance but later went to ValleyCare Northside Hospital for treatment of swelling on the side of her race and abrasions on her elbow and swelling on her knee.

A Hubbard police officer with assistance from Hubbard Township Police Chief Todd Coonce, arrested Wauer on Interstate 80 west of Hubbard.

Police said they found the injured woman’s cell phone at North Main Street at Mock Street, and its screen was shattered, but police were going to attempt to retrieve photos from it.

Wauer was sentenced to one year in prison in January 2010 after being convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm for a 2009 incident in Warren.

McIntyre was injured not far from where Cody Pitts, 26, of Hubbard was found dead from a single gunshot wound in March. Police are still investigating that case.

A witness spotted Pitts’ body in the street at 3:30 a.m. March 7, a Saturday morning.